Report puts a face on domestic violence

Sunday

Oct 28, 2007 at 2:00 AM

Just about everyone is touched in one way or another by domestic violence during his or her lifetime. We think first of the victim, but it can also be their children, parents and other extended family and friends.

Karen Dandurant

Just about everyone is touched in one way or another by domestic violence during his or her lifetime. We think first of the victim, but it can also be their children, parents and other extended family and friends.

The staff at the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence released a report during Domestic Violence Awareness Month recently that sheds light on victims murdered by their significant others in New Hampshire between 2005 and 2007.

"We had modeled our report after one the Kansas Coalition did," said Maureen McDonald, public relations coordinator for the coalition. "It's an effective way of personalizing domestic violence and showing what happened in our state. We want to use the report to educate, but it's also an awareness piece."

Fourteen people who lost their lives to domestic violence are the focus of the report. The case histories contain different elements, but the one glaring point they share is clear — all were victims of uncontrollable rage.

"The state victim-witness advocates at the attorney general's office worked with the families on the trials and the cases," McDonald said. "They contacted the families and let them know it was coming out."

One victim's family had mixed feelings, so the story was not used, she said.

Locally, three stories were told.

In Epping in 1991, Kimberly Ernest, 21, was beaten and strangled by her ex-boyfriend Walter Hutchinson, 35, and was left in a vegetative state. Fifteen years later, she died as a result of her injuries. A trial is pending for Hutchinson, who was originally found guilty of attempted murder. Now, he is indicted on a charge of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder. In Brentwood in 2006, Caitlyn Brady, 18, was dating Dante Silva, 22, when she died on March 15 from a heroin overdose allegedly dispensed by Dante. In court, prosecutors argued that Silva gave her a massive dose of heroin and, after witnessing her go into a coma, he collected his drug paraphernalia and discarded it in a Dumpster, leaving her alone and dying for more than five hours. The medical examiner testified she did not die immediately and conceivably could have been saved if she had received medical attention. Silva was found guilty of providing a controlled drug with a death resulting and sentenced to life in prison, with no chance of parole for at least 10 years. In Dover in 2006, after a heated argument, Lauralee Perkins, 36, was shot in the chest by her partner, Heather Stone, 35, in the home they shared. At the time of the shooting, Stone's young son and Perkins' daughter were asleep in a bedroom. Heather had a history of abusing previous partners, having been charged with 15 crimes between 1996 and 2001. On March 10, 2006, two months before her death, police were called to the home for a domestic disturbance, but no arrests were made. Stone was charged with first-degree murder and second-degree murder. She is scheduled to plead guilty to the second-degree charge this month, accepting a plea of 30 years to life.

"We want more people to know that services are out there for the victims, but also for family and friends," McDonald said. 'We want them to know they can call us for advice and if they are afraid to step in."

McDonald said when a victim makes the decision to leave a threatening situation, it represents the most dangerous time for that person.

"Safety planning is important," she said. "The average is seven times before a victim really decides to leave an abusive relationship. There are a lot of factors that play into that. Much is financial. Many are encouraged not to work so they are not independent financially. Maybe they're not getting child support. It's hard, and sometimes they wonder if it's worth it and they go back."

McDonald said a lot of police departments participate in training to help them deal with the frustration of responding to calls over and over again. They learn their role and how to handle it better.

A New Hampshire violence against women survey done last year showed numbers that were pretty parallel to the nation's, but McDonald said sexual assault victims tallied a little higher than they had expected.

"It doesn't go down," she said. "Our numbers of people served have steadily grown over the years, but with no major spikes."

McDonald said they did an outreach to male victims of sexual assault and that partly explains the increase.

"Anyone can be a victim of sexual assault," she said. "So we saw an increase in male victims over a two-year period; that represents a 235 percent increase in the number of adult men seeking services for sexual assault."

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